What’s that smell?
Earlier this week, we pledged to you, our dear readers, that Crikey would never use artificial intelligence to write our articles. We described it as “unhuman slop”, and promised that all of the slop we serve you will be 100% organic.
Until AI can generate a headline as brilliant as “Pissing in the Sink”, that is. A News Corp insider saw our mention of that headline, which adorned a profile of former Daily Telegraph editor in chief Col Allan in Crikey’s first-ever edition more than 24 years ago, and felt compelled to get in touch.
Our source took us back to a renovation of News Corp Australia’s Holt St headquarters in Sydney’s Surry Hills at the turn of the century, where the company was renovating one floor at a time.
When they did the floor underneath The Daily Telegraph (which sits on the third floor of the building today alongside news.com.au), our source claims, plumbing workers exposed the outlet pipe running down from Col Allan’s office.
“The workers, knowing exactly what they were doing, cut the pipe and capped it,” our source said.
“They knew that as the water backed up and the smell increased Col would not be able to complain because that would be to admit that he pissed in the sink.”
Our source claims after a few days, the workers took pity on Allan and uncapped the pipe.
Allan would later admit to “occasionally” relieving himself in the sink, with Crikey reporting he once almost got caught ahead of a conference by Lachlan Murdoch himself, having “literally just sat back down when Lachlan walked in”.
“Close shave, that.”
Back to school!
It might be back to school for the graphic designers and bean-counters in Australian newsrooms. Does no-one understand the concept of a pie chart?
The latest baked good-shaped flop has come from Nine’s Today show, purporting to show the results of a Resolve poll on voter support for nuclear energy. The survey found 41% of voters supported the notion after the Coalition floated the idea with the release of its nuclear energy policy last week, while 37% opposed it. That left 22% undecided, but despite that being the smallest proportion of voters in the poll, Today ran a pie chart that had the 22% undecided section as significantly larger than the 37% opposed section.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen the media play silly little games with pie charts. The Australian’s preferred prime minister Newspoll from January 30, 2022, ahead of the federal election, showed former Liberal leader Scott Morrison marginally ahead of rival Anthony Albanese 43% to 41%, with 16% of voters in the poll unsure.
Despite a relatively small margin, The Australian’s graphics team made Morrison’s 43% appear to occupy almost half of the pie.
Likewise, back in 2022, the Herald Sun ran a poll of its readers and found that 65% of them didn’t think Albanese contracting COVID-19 shortly before of the election would affect the Labor Party’s chances. Despite this strong majority, the no vote was represented by the Herald Sun with a significantly smaller portion of the pie chart than the yes vote.
Tucker Carlson’s victory lap
Last week we brought you the news that Tucker Carlson’s tour of Australia had seen ticket prices slashed, with seats at one of the Clive Palmer-backed shows listed at less than a quarter of their original asking price.
The tour, dubbed the Australian Freedom Conference and featuring the likes of conservative commentators Dinesh D’Souza and Melissa McCann, kicked off this week, and could not be accused of being uneventful. The Brisbane show was disrupted by activist Drew Pavlou brandishing a Ukrainian flag, while the Canberra event coincided with the news that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would walk free after five years in a British prison fighting extradition to the United States.
Despite some criticism online — one attendee wasn’t prepared for the marathon five-hour show that included a screening of D’Souza’s 2022 documentary 2000 Mules — as well as photos circulating of empty seats at the tour’s Brisbane leg, Palmer insists it’s all going swimmingly.
The mining magnate told Crikey the tour was a “great success”, and had “sold out everywhere”. We guess those discounts worked.
